99 sheets of white paper

... and what you can do with them

about this blog

About this Blog

Doing an illustration for my other blog, I had a very frustrating experience with new quality drawing paper which got me thinking and indeed resulted in a flood of ideas, what can be done with the 99 sheets of paper that are still left from the block. So I decided to install a whole new blog to show you the results. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I like to create the projects.

The sheets of paper I am working with are size A4 (21 x 29.7 mm), 185 g/m².

TERMS OF USE: I'm happy for you to use this tutorial to make items which you can keep, give as gifts or sell. You are not permitted to copy, resell or distribute the tutorial in any form (printed or digital). All images and texts are my own and under copyright.

Montag, 25. März 2013

Here comes a further variation of the woven Easter egg postcard. It is so much fun to come up with ideas for weaving that I did this last woven egg with sequins added. This is for those of you who like it a bit more glamorous.

Easter Postcard with Woven Egg and sequins

Material and instruction like in Easter postcard No. 3. You also need some sequins fitting your chosen colour scheme. Proceed just as in postcard no. 3, but weave more loosely. After finishing the weaving, add the sequins. I made groups of three and spread them evenly over the egg.

All these variations are meant to show that you can let your imagination run free and come up with the most beautiful ideas yourself. Have fun!

This Easter postcard project varies the theme and technique of Easter Postcard No. 3. It is woven again, but more colourful as you can see. I sort of liked the idea to wrap it in a warm and cosy plaid, especially as it's extremaly cold outside with biting wind and not nearly feeling like spring or Easter.

Easter Postcard with Plaid Egg

Materials and instruction see Easter Postcard No. 3, only add some more colours and weave more loosely so you can see the warp threads, too.

Cover the dots with adhesive tape for more stability. This is the back side of the postcard, so it won't show.

Pierce all the dots.

Start weaving by doing all the vertical lines. This is the warp.

Begin with the weft at the bottom of the egg. As you can see, I applied two different techniques: plain-weaving and twill-weaving. You can find the explanation here. To achieve the herringbone effect you have to change the direction of the warp thread you are weaving under: to let the pattern 'move' to the right, weave under the next warp thread to the right in every row, to move to the left vice versa.

Suture all ends neatly on the back.

Cover the green paper with spray glue and press thoroughly to the back of the white paper.

Fold carefully along the middle with a bone folder.

You can further vary your design by using different colours for the weft and creating stripes.

As outside everything is still black, brown and muddy, I wanted to do projects that give a 'springy' feeling by using spring green and other bright colours. I began with some Easter postcards. You can see the first one above. I actually used some blades of grass I found behind my garden.

Cut vertical lines 3 mm apart so they build the shape of an egg into the front of your postcard. You can order the template here.

Cut strips of paper 3, 6 and 8 mm wide.

Weave the strips into the vertically cut egg-shape, alternating the width and occasionally using the blades of grass, too. You have to handle the grass very carefully, because it's so brittle. I used a small kitchen knife to help threading. The last strips are a bit tricky, too.

Cut off the excess length of the strips on the back, yet not too short.

Spray glue onto the green paper and press tightly onto the back of the postcard.

Make a pattern for the crown or feel free to order it here. Cut out carefully.

Fold the rim in halve and glue together.

Spray thoroughly with glitter hairspray.

Glue the ends of the rim together, overlapping.

For the gems cover small pieces from the cut-off paper with red oil pastel for a ruby and blue for a sapphire. Rumple and smooth again and then paint over the creases in darker shades of red and blue. Cut out circles a bit smaller than in the crown.

To let the 'gems' be more 3D you can rumple small pieces from the cut-off paper and fix it on the back.

Rumple small pieces of cellophane and cover the front of the gem, gluing them to the back with tiny pieces of tape.

Put some double-faced adhesive tape onto the back of the gems and fix them on the crown, alternating the colours.

Carnival aside, how about throwing a motto party for princes and princesses? You might give every guest a crown as a welcome gift. Or, using the templates, you might let them do their personal (simpler) versions of crowns by decorating and painting them alone.

Über mich

I'm living in a small town in the northwest of Germany. My favourites are anything to do with creativity such as illustration (of course), books, crafts, architecture, design, gardening...
You are very welcome to comment on my explorations in this blog.